


Trouble's Face

by Arlyshawk



Series: En'ca Minne [1]
Category: Wiedźmin | The Witcher (Video Game), Wiedźmin | The Witcher - All Media Types
Genre: F/M, Fluff
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2017-07-16
Updated: 2017-07-16
Packaged: 2018-12-02 18:07:49
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,186
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/11514675
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Arlyshawk/pseuds/Arlyshawk
Summary: Iorveth has moments of impatience, sometimes ones that are never soothed; distrust only deepens this. While waiting for information from Geralt of Rivia, the Scoia'tael leader finds himself dealing with a far greater force - his very grumpy love of his life.





	Trouble's Face

**Author's Note:**

> Features a friend of mine's Witcher OC, who is good friends with my Luthien. :3

Iorveth’s pacing.

His shadow is long and distorted against the canvas of their tent, the image flickering and waltzing against cream as the lantern flickers in the brisk night air. His strides are long and he bears his tension in his broad shoulders, the muscles in his neck bearing the most as they strain at the way he holds himself. He rolls his shoulders at one point, neck cracking sharp in the dull quiet. Muscles in his jaw tense as the sour look on his face that is ever present grows progressively worse at the sound of his soldiers’ playing varying instruments awfully. It sounds like choking geese and sick cows, to her ears.

Luthien reclines on the cot, watching as Iorveth’s nose crinkles for a brief moment. She wears an old shirt of his that she’s taken as one of her own because it doesn’t pull at the scars on her neck.

“Iorveth, she’ll come back,” Luthien grumbles into a pillow as she turns and wraps her arms around it, propping her chin on it. He tenses at her voice but his gaze doesn’t move. She frowns, “Petra always comes back when there’s a something to do.”

“She said it’d take a few hours, it’s been almost twelve,” Iorveth snaps, green eye turning back to her, dark with his frustration. He begins to pace the length of the tent again.

“Iorveth, come lay down,” She says firmly, but he doesn’t listen, he’s too angry and she can see it in the way he walks now. Luthien sits up at once, pulling her legs up and glaring at him as he turns to face her. He gets stiff at once, “She’ll be fine, now come lie down - you’ve been on your feet all day and it’s late.”

His smirk is wry, “You say that because you’re cold.”

“And I’m tired, so come over here.”

Iorveth steals a glance at the camp, the fire flickering dimly, the figures of Scoia'tael dark against the starlit sky, but does as she asks. He sits on the edge of the cot, barely being able to settle before she climbs into his lap and straddles it, holding his gaze. His arms wrap around her hips as she settles, his skin warm against the thin shirt. She’s close enough to see the pale scar and with gentle fingers, lifts the edge of the crimson scarf he wears around the right side of his face.

He flinches, “Why are you touching it?”

“I want to make sure it’s all right,” Luthien whispers, scolding him. The scarf peels back to reveal a scarred eye that is red, the pupil like clouded glass. It breaks her heart, the fact that he cannot see out of this eye. It makes him angry, the fact that he has to turn to see anything on the right side, he has to trust himself too much. He trusts her to be his eyes. It’s why she chooses to walk on his right side now, as she has for years, because it eases the stress that often perturbs him. She pulls it back down and searches his face, finding nothing but his frustration. Her hands are on his face, “Petra will come back, you terribly grouchy creature.”

“You continue to say that, yet I find it hard to believe.”

“She always helped before, didn’t she?”

He hesitates a moment, looking beyond her to the opening of the tent, “She does. But if she does not return…”

“Iorveth,” Her tone is vaguely sharp and she makes him look at her. “Stop it.”

“I have a very –” She stops him from talking anymore by kissing him hard on the mouth and then pulls back to glare at him. He opens his mouth, closes it, and then whispers, “You’re angry with me.”

“Frustrated, yes because you don’t trust her as I do. Petra may be human, but she is a witch before that. She is treated as a pariah as much as we are, you pain.”

“And I often forget that, after our previous history and her abandonment of the fight. But now things are different, times have changed.” He sighs heavily, shoulder slumping toward her and he props his forehead on her shoulder where the inking on her collar ends. “You know me well, Luthien.”

She rubs the back of his neck and rests her chin on the top of her head. In the quiet, she hums a tune that frequents her lyre as she ghosts her fingers over his skin and traces the pattern on his shoulder that goes up and over it and down his shoulder blade itself. She does this for a while, listening to soft sounds of his breathing until she hears ruckus behind them, of Scoia'tael rising.

Luthien gently pushes a half asleep Iorveth down onto the cot, and for a moment, he fights her until she perches herself on his chest like a cat and glares into his one eye. He doesn’t move then. She gets up, pulling his mossy green coat on as she exits, the sleeves too long and it drags behind her as she spies Petra in the camp. Her friend smiles at her Scoia'tael soldiers, most shying from her like spooked horses, her hair burning shades of gold and amber as the fires illuminate her hair. The witch smiles as she approaches, catching her in a tight embrace.

Luthien smiles up at her friend, one who had been helping them for years but just now moved to their unit here because of Geralt of Rivia. Iorveth doesn’t like her as well as Luthien would like, mostly because he felt betrayed and he holds grudges as well as plants hold water. And he’s asleep so to her, it matters little.

“Trouble?” Luthien asks as she pulls Petra along, out of the gazes of her soldiers. Petra’s silver dress is shrouded by her embroidered cloak and the strap of her herb bag is slung across her chest.

“Geralt and Dandelion,” Petra grumbles, shaking her head. “I leave Geralt alone with him and he gets my Dandelion in trouble.”

“Sounds like our vatt'ghern,” She laughs as they worm their way to the healer’s tent. “Iorveth’s head was spinning while you were away.”

Petra chuckles, her voice like polished silver bells, “And how did that go over?”

She puffs her chest out a bit, “I sat on him when you came.”

Her friend’s laugh is high in the trees as she laughs, her smile like sunshine. “I hope he’ll stay, the pain. He’s almost as bad as Geralt at not listening.”

“He had better, lest he wants to end up purposefully in a tree.”

The two gets looks as they pass, laughing like hyenas, to the tent. Petra is beautiful in her silver dress and neatly kept hair and Luthien, she figures, must look like an elven ruffian, dressed in her lover’s coat and shirt, her feet silent in the grass. Petra will bid the Scoia'tael farewell in the morning, she knows that, but for now she stays awake as long as her friend allows it.


End file.
